


soft hands

by ladyalysv (verity)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2006-2007 NHL Season, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, M/M, Sentinel/Guide Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-26 11:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/ladyalysv
Summary: "You wrap yourself up," Seryhoza says. "But not around Sid."





	soft hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freefall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freefall/gifts).



> thanks to my cheerleaders/betas/dear friends d & s <3

"It'll be good for hockey, though," Papa said, after the accident.

The specialist chuckled. He was turned toward Papa, leaving Zhenya to kick his legs and stare at the shiny scalp half-hidden beneath his carefully combed hair. "Could be," he said. "Could be."

Zhenya looked down at the floor, then at his hands, which didn't look any different. Usually doctors talked to _him_ —well, trainers, anyway, and physical therapists—and having Papa in the room made Zhenya feel like a child.

When the bare skin of his heel struck the examination table, the metal felt nearly as cold as ice.

* * *

If Zhenya had been younger, or any less skilled a player, he would have gone to one of the schools for people with exceptional talents. "But you are already an exceptional talent, Evgeni," the assessor said, smiling. "I'm sure that with a little training, you will be able to manage well."

Everything felt different, though. His pads hung heavy on his shoulders, his skates rubbed already-raw skin on his feet, and his stick cut into his hand through the heavy gloves. He stumbled through the next game—a loss—and came home late, stewing in frustration and cheap vodka. 

Mama was still up, and Denis; Zhenya couldn't stand how they looked at him as he came into the living room. "I'm fine," Zhenya said, weaving through the maze of end tables. He steadied himself with a hand on the back of the sofa. "I'm not a child. You don't need to stay up for me."

Denis rolled his eyes. "You're a baby."

"You are both my babies," Mama said firmly. "Drink some water before bed, Zhenka."

"Yes, Mama," Zhenya said sullenly, and went to do it. His hand shook on the tap as he held a glass beneath the faucet; the chill soaked into his skin as he filled the glass, sinking right down to the bone.

* * *

By the time he arrived in Pittsburgh, it had been nearly five years since the accident. Long enough that even Zhenya forgot about it, from time to time—the sensitivity that seemed more like a curse than a gift. 

Seryhoza knew, of course. "I haven't brought it up with the team," he said over dinner. "Things are complicated enough."

"Yes," Zhenya said, frowning. "Are you sure that Metallurg…" He didn't know how to ask about the lawsuit; he didn't even want to think about it.

Seryhoza laughed. "America isn't so different from home. You think the NHL doesn't have enough money to make them go away?"

So much money. Zhenya can't even make sense of it. Everyone here acts like it's normal. Everyone here acts like he's normal. Just one of the guys. On the ice, he can even believe it.

* * *

Not knowing the words here makes things easier, in a way. Zhenya's sensitivity isn't a half-secret, the way it was when he played with Metallurg. Instead, it's something for which he has no vocabulary except its own language—the language of touch. A puck dangling from his stick, his arms around his line in a hug, the stretch of his thighs as he skates toward the goal, a forceful check to Ovechkin when they meet on opposite sides of the center line.

Everyone says Zhenya has soft hands.

* * *

Sid. 

_Sid_ is exceptional.

Of course, Sid doesn't like to talk about all that. He's been Sid the kid since he was a kid, and he's still a kid at nineteen, a weird combination of muscled and scrawny. Usually he talks about hockey, which is also most of what Zhenya can understand in English, so that's fine. Their conversations stagger around, disjointed, but being in Sid's company is still easy. Like being at home. 

Like a no-look pass on the ice.

* * *

Sid touches people so easily. Or—no. He touches their team. Pats shoulders, hugs, swats them with affection. When they're padded up for a game, it barely registers. How easy it is to touch then, when they're all together, each one a limb of the same striving body. Even Zhenya feels safe with the team. His own touch may be too knowing, but they're already known to each other. Nothing Zhenya can feel with a brief gesture is stronger than what he can already see.

Sid, though.

He hugs Zhenya longer than anyone else does. Their hands brush as they take their sticks off the rack. Yet none of it feels like a threat, an intrusion. Only like Zhenya knows Sid, too, somehow. Deeply. The way he knows the heft of the stick in his hand. The way he winds the tape around it before a game. Zhenya is the stick and Sid is the tape. Or maybe it's the other way around.

* * *

The regular season is nearly over, but they're seeded for the playoffs. 

"Have you thought about what Sid is to you?" Seryhoza says one night, driving them home after practice. 

"What," Zhenya says. It's dark, so Seryhoza can't see him blush. "What— _Sid_?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

"Who tell me what?"

"Whatever institute it was," Seryhoza says. "Where the government sent you for your talent."

Talent. As if that has anything to do with it. "No one sent me anywhere. I was fifteen already."

Seryhoza sighs. The light ahead turns green. "Normally, you're assigned a guide. To help you. So it's not—overwhelming."

Zhenya looks at him. "You are?"

"It wasn't me," Seryhoza says. "My brother. He can hear a heart beating from across the room. He can see a bird from a mile away."

"What a nightmare," Zhenya says, clenching his fists. "At least I can—"

"You wrap yourself up," Seryhoza says. "But not around Sid."

* * *

They're back in Mellon Arena for the third game of the quarterfinals, tied with Ottawa and fresh off a win. Zhenya feels nervous, even so. He lingers after practice, and so does Sid, always the last one off the ice.

"How you know," Zhenya says. "When you…" He taps his stick on the ice, then gestures toward the goal.

Sid looks at Zhenya's face with those guileless brown eyes. "I just feel it," he says. "Don't you?"


End file.
